4 bag Prince Mahidol awards

Three Americans and a Swede were awarded with this year’s Prince Mahidol Award for their work in the field of medicine and public health, it has been announced.

The results were announced yesterday after the Prince Mahidol Award Foundation’s committee, chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, picked the winners out of 25 shortlisted international candidates on Nov 2.

Professor Brian Druker, 63, a physician at the Oregon Health & Science University, in Portland, Oregon, won the award for his work in the development of Imatinib, commonly known as Gleevec, which is used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

Professor Mary-Claire King, 72, is an American human geneticist at the University of Washington.

In 1990, she demonstrated how a single gene called chromosome 17 — later known as BRCA1 — can cause breast and ovarian cancers.

Prof King also successfully developed a method of cancer screening through genetics, which has helped improve global access to effective cancer screening.

John Clemens is a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He led the research team that successfully developed the first low-cost oral vaccine against cholera.

Jan Holmgren is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Prof Holmgren is known for his role in testing and proving the efficiency of oral cholera vaccines, which the World Health Organisation is recommending over intravenous injections of cholera vaccines.